Arduino Yún – combining Arduino with Linux
blog.arduino.cc
blog.arduino.cc
We need more Arduino-based startups more than photo sharing sites and hipster apps. Then this world will become truly advanced!
(I'm not saying the technology isn't there right now, I'm just saying the common man needs to be able to afford this too.)
EDIT: I know the Raspberry Pi can do it already, but the Arduino will probably fit better into basic electrical gadgets like the regular fan, light, etc. I think a fan having a HDMI port (Raspbeery Pi) would be awkward, no? That's why I think this is 'groundbreaking' for the Arduino community.
Maybe groundbreaking should've been reserved for something else better, I'm sorry.
For example, this thing has most of the capabilities to build a Nest (http://nest.com/) knock-off. However, it wouldn't make sense to use that board design.
Also, the cost would be much lower using a single SoC to do everything. The Yun only includes the ATmega paired with a Linux SoC so you can add WIFI while still using regular Arduino sketches.
Please tell me, from where have you been sourcing your wifi Arduinos?
Thanks. :)
Don't get me wrong, this is cool and there is certainly a benefit to the entire Arduino "ecosystem", particularly for those new to hobby electronics -- the IDEs and vast amount of tutorials create a nice positive feedback loop for the beginner. However, there is a lot more to the overall "Maker" electronics community than the Arduino and in context this is a cool little product, but nothing particularly unexpected. If anything Arduino has been lagging a bit behind everyone else on actual hardware and needed to catch up and this is a nice step there.
That said, I expect over time I expect the Black to do really well, and the Arduino Due. Many people could learn a lot by looking at what Arduino does well.
From the beaglebone terms of use....
You may use the Beaglebone Black as you choose. However, we do not support the use of the board in commercial products.The reasons for this are very simple. We did not design the board for use in your product. We cannot therefore guarantee that it will work in all cases and over the full range of operation you expect. We have had instances where people have done this and returned 25% of their purchases saying they would not work. Either the boards worked perfectly once received, or they had been blown up. This adds to our costs and puts a burden on our RMA operation. It also takes away from our production capacity. We do not want to see our distributors run out of boards because someone is buying up the inventory.
Lets think of one device, a relay (or solidstate relay) that controls an outlet.
You need:
A radio, or a powerline networking unit ($10). Some sort of processor ($45 for a Pi w/ps and sd card). Some low level logic to connect to the relay ($.25), the relay ($2), and the power socket ($2).
If you want to control two outlets at one place, you're only duplicating from the low level stuff to the power socket. That's another $5.
If you want to do this at a location that's more than a usb cable away from site #1, you're in for another $50.
The holy grail here is a wifi enabled power socket. All it needs is a small api: status and on/off. Bonus points if there's a current sensor. This could be done with the processor from Bunny's $12 phone and the power relay bits.
But, it's got to be priced in the $10/socket range.
/me realizes that I've just dated myself here.
http://www.amazon.com/Etekcity%C2%AE-Wireless-Controlled-Ele...
And here is a project for them:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-GPIO-home-autom...
AR9331 pinout: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n/ar9331_pinout
OpenWRT is quite nice, and ships with a Lua based web interface, which is ideal for a low memory/CPU device like a router.
Laptops and desktops (with some exceptions...) simply don't have the peripherals (such as DACs, PWM, analog ins) which people need to deal with sensors and robotics. Therefore, Arduino's micro-peripherals were a welcome addition to the world.
Combining the workstation core (CPU) and network into one place gives the Arduino a greater level of autonomy than it used to have. It can now do much more without requiring that it's attached (tethered or "tumored") to a desktop.
Whether the price and features make it worthwhile is impossible to predict. We are in an explosion of microcontroller/embedded development right now and devices are coming out faster than people can fully learn to appreciate them (Commodore 64 junkie). It's probably best to pick the platform that has the strongest support community or the one you know the components of the best.
Also just because an Arduino board is built with SMD or very small components doesn't mean a user has to do the same thing. This board has the same headers for input/output as any other Arduino so you can attach existing shields, put on a protoboard, or just plug wires in directly. I don't see how the Yun does anything to shun newbies.
My previous comment tries to convey that you need to leave the Arduino in the project instead of just using it as a prototyping platform once you go SMD. Well sure, that'd increase sales for arduino boards.
I still like the Arduino platform but this seems like the wrong direction with so many capable low cost ARM boards to choose from.
On the other hand, more competition is probably healthy for this market...
How easy is it to get the eATMega324 to talk to AR9331?
Is it done by supplying a special package for the Arduino?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sparkdevices/spark-core-...
Got real excited for awhile, then realized they mean liberal arts generic meaning of the word "sketch" and not the nifty into to programming language named "Sketch". Sketch now with I/O, that would be cool.
The desire for a rasp-pi with the shape and form and I/O plug compatible with the arduino shield ecosystem is probably a common desire and I hope it arrives soon. Someday there will be an arduino running sketch with a COTS arduino motor shield (or whatever) plugged into it.